The Thirty-eight republic - Covid Carnage - Schools still waiting for test kits

[SantaAssociationRepresentitve]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give the staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Ooh no I'm not Noble! I am very shiny and gleaming though ,

You absolutely are GB! Oh do keep that username-classic!

- post about marking essays
- post about PE teachers
- attack on teachers
- post about books
- post about teaching history
- attack on teachers..

Exactly, our discussion hardly represents uncaring and feckless teachers, eh!?

It read a bit like a year 9 lesson with that one annoying kid.
Teacher: so we know that Shakespeare wrote plays for the masses
Kid: is he dead miss?
Me: well since it's 2020 and he was alive in the 1500s, yes. Anyway, Janes I wrote a book about witches
Kid: James is in the other class miss
Me: hmmm... as I was saying... so let's have a look at act 1 scene 1
Kid: miss it's not in English

Glad you all approve!

Re marking - I do very very little nowadays. I used to spend whole days with different coloured pens, and stamps etc. No idea why - as far as I could see it made fuck all difference (except at A level maybe)
Now I get them to mark their own using a mark scheme that I talk through. That way they can actually see what the examiners are after. For end of topic tests I check their marking.
And that's it.
Is that bad enough to earn my username?

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Do you like my new username? Twirls

I love it !

Nope.
Must try harder. You've not called for schools to shut in the last 5 minutes. Call yourself an enemy...

One of my year 10 students at the start of the year told me I'm more sarcastic than his mum. His mum is my friend so I take that as a compliment.
I feel my sarcasm is being sharpened on other threads for the start of term today 😂

MrsHamlet I can visualise that

I have one in training for that role. Refers to a decimal point as ‘that mad wee dot’.

I am not sure our little invader was an adult.

I'm a bit slow to reply to people who had commented on my key worker / being signed off for arthritis posts and now that's on another thread lol! So ....we got the email saying this time round it's only if both parents are key workers. So we couldn't have a place. My DH is going to muddle through with the home schooling when I'm at work and I will have to do it on the other days. I'm more worried about his mental health as he isn't coping with this so well anymore. He has been working at home since March (as many people have obviously). He's not seen anyone and is really struggling. I see people at work and then in summer when rules were relaxed we had playdates and stuff in the park etc and whatever else was allowed. We have been for walks with one set of our friends but other than that he's not seen anyone.
Now the stress of this and homeschooling and juggling his work around to make it work , he's at his wit's end.
Thankfully the steroids I am taking have helped my joints a small amount , however I have osteoporosis as well and steroids are generally an absolute no no as they thin your bones so this will only be allowed to be a two week short course , and then I know everything will just come back again. I've had this for about 15 years and any time I take steroids it helps at the time but then as soon as I stop it comes back immediately so I've bought myself a couple of weeks that's all.

I've upped some of my injection doses but in doing so I'm going to be hit by absolutely terrible side effects and feel like hell from that, so I don't see much optimism in any of this. I suppose I'll go in on Monday and try - we have inset this week anyhow and then I guess I'll have to see how I'm going.
I hate this !

What I don’t understand is why doctor’s and nursing unions aren’t calling for schools to be shut.
If schools stay open Covid will spread —even more than it already has— and the NHS will be overwhelmed. I’m scared of catching Covid. But I’m really scared of catching it or a loved one catching it and the NHS not being there for them.

I’ve enjoyed catching up on the staffroom invasion. You should have thrown a Wagon Wheel at them not just a digestive. They’ve shrunk but might still do a bit of damage. I’ll donate as I’m not eating chocolate now. I agree with the comments on PE teachers. It’s definitely a thing.

Hang on I fell asleep and have just woken up to hear Molly Kingsley saying we need better mitigation measures and that transmission is in schools. Wtaf.

On LBC right now.

@WhenSheWasBad

What I don’t understand is why doctor’s and nursing unions aren’t calling for schools to be shut. If schools stay open Covid will spread —even more than it already has— and the NHS will be overwhelmed. I’m scared of catching Covid. But I’m really scared of catching it or a loved one catching it and the NHS not being there for them.

I haven’t really seen what their unions are asking for?

I fell back to sleep and had a wildly inappropriate dream

Now to see how my fellow enemies are this morning. runs hands with glee

@WhenSheWasBad

What I don’t understand is why doctor’s and nursing unions aren’t calling for schools to be shut. If schools stay open Covid will spread —even more than it already has— and the NHS will be overwhelmed. I’m scared of catching Covid. But I’m really scared of catching it or a loved one catching it and the NHS not being there for them.

I think they are conflicted on this - a lot are parents and obviously they can't WFH. Also HCPs are frequently married to HCPs

I had a school dream last night!!

I dreamt that I got to my Y9 classroom and there were loads of kids in - like 2/3 of the class and the others at home. The ones in class were sitting in the wrong places/on the wrong side of the desks and being really noisy. I was desperately trying to set the lesson up on teams and the slides were all in the wrong order and I couldn't reorder them. Couldn't get teams to work. Couldn't get the kids in class to be quiet and sit properly (weird as my Y9s are actually nice!). Basically, the lesson was an absolute shit show!

Hoping that Monday isn't quite that bad!

Morning!

Why on earth would you stomp into a group of posters and point out that you think they’re all twats?

Low quality rhetoric though. I reckon they’d scrape a 4.

It was a dream. It was actually happening. Had LBC playing on my phone.

*wasn't

This is a fucking mess. I'm going back to sleep!

Mary B was good with the facts but said no to Castle asking her about strike action.

Then he went to Kingsley who stumbled around a bit said the line about Spielman and that she won't bother doing remote education because it doesn't work she will do other stuff instead.

Ophelia that sounds so tough for you and your dh. Wfh is really difficult for anyone who likes people (my dh loves it, because he doesn't like people). And I have huge sympathy for your arthritis, pain makes everything in life more difficult. I have nothing to suggest, just

That was an interesting visitor in the middle of the night.

Yes, there has been a gradual (almost gaslight-y) change in the way that numerous epidemiologists/doctors/PH specialists have started to say "obviously there is a lot of transmission in schools" or "secondary AND primary aged children are the most affected age groups"... As if they have been saying this all along (they haven't)...